ArticleDigital health
The digital rainbow: Digital determinants of health inequities.
Article in Digital health. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 60 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
60 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Inequalities in Exclusively Mobile Interventions Targeting Weight-Related Behaviors: Systematic Review of Observational Studies.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2026Pooled it
- Digital Inequalities in the Use of eHealth Services in European Public Health Care Systems: Systematic Review of Observational Studies.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Pooled it
- Structural biases in digital health intervention and health equity research: a bibliometric knowledge graph analysis (2015-2025).Frontiers in digital health · 2026Pooled it
- The inclusion and impact of digital determinants of health in digital nutrition interventions for adolescents: a systematic review.Health promotion international · 2025Pooled it
- The Efficacy of Digital Interventions on Adherence to Oral Systemic Anticancer Therapy Among Patients With Cancer: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.JMIR cancer · 2025Pooled it
- Telehealth and access to acute primary care in Europe: Balancing opportunity and equity.The European journal of general practice · 2026Article
- Smartphone technology, social network maintenance, and social participation among Mandarin-speaking older immigrants in Canada.The Gerontologist · 2026Article
- A Scoping Review of the Mechanisms Influencing Socioeconomic Disparities in Outcomes of Digital Interventions for Weight-Related Behaviors.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2026Article
- Understanding Digital Health Equity: A Conceptual Analysis.Journal of advanced nursing · 2026Review
- Engagement and Intersectionality in Digital Self-Management Interventions for Asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Scoping Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- A global call to action on the digital determinants of health.NPJ digital medicine · 2026Review
- Structural Inequalities in Online Health Information Seeking: Cross-National Multilevel Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Complex role of digital health literacy in awareness and use of digital sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections testing: a structural equation modelling analysis of the 2022 GetCheckedOnline survey.Sexually transmitted infections · 2026Article
- Development of a Digital Health Literacy Assessment Framework for Older Adults: Delphi-Based Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Telehealth Use and Modality Choice Among US Adults: Shorrocks-Shapley Decomposition of a 2022 Cross-Sectional National Survey.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Social Determinants of Health Assessed Among Nurses: A KAP-Oriented Systematic Review Using the Dahlgren-Whitehead Rainbow Model.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Internet Health Care Service Use Behavioral Pattern Among Older Adults and the Role of the Technology Acceptance and Social Ecological Theory Model: Cross-Sectional Survey.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Digital and data capabilities for sexual and reproductive health: a participatory interdisciplinary approach to workforce transformation.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Digital Health Literacy and Its Role in Awareness of and Access to Sexual Health Products and Services Among Displaced Youth in Uganda's Informal Urban Settlements: Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Development and Validation of a Revised Multidimensional Digital Health Literacy Scale: Secondary Analysis Using Cross-Sectional Data From the 2022 GetCheckedOnline Community Survey In British Columbia, Canada.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The widely used socioecological rainbow model from Dahlgren and Whitehead specifies determinants of health inequity on multiple hierarchical levels and suggests that these determinants may interact both within and between levels. At the time of its inception, digital determinants only played a minor role in tackling inequities in public health and were therefore not specifically considered. This has dramatically changed: From today's perspective, health inequities increasingly depend on digital determinants. In this article, we suggest adapting the Dahlgren-Whitehead model to reflect these developments. We propose a model that allows formulating testable hypotheses, interpreting research findings, and developing policy implications against the background of the global spread of digital technologies. This may facilitate the development of a new line of research and logic models for public health interventions in the digital age. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, we illustrate how the digitization of all aspects of life affects the different levels of determinants of health inequities in the Dahlgren-Whitehead model. In doing so, we deliberately argue for not introducing a separate digital sphere in its own right, but for understanding digitization as a phenomenon that permeates all levels of determinants of health inequities. As a result, we present a digital rainbow model that integrates Dahlgren and Whitehead's 1991 model with digital environments to identify current health promotion and research issues without changing the rainbow model's initial structure.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.